The Crush of Guilt
by HollowIsTheWorld
Summary: The Doctor knew he had done terrible things to the people who trusted him. But there was one man that brought out the guilt even worse. One he had destroyed as thoroughly as he, himself, was destroyed. The Doctor reflects on Jack's fate.


**AN: **I saw a post the other day that was talking about the most depressing things that had even happened to companions on Doctor Who and they said they weren't going to include companions like Jack who had 'turned out alright in the end.' Which got me thinking about how very much _not_ alright Jack was in the end. Living for billions of years? Can you think of something worse than having to watch all the people you care about die? In a lot of ways he was turned into the Doctor, and everyone agrees that the Doctor has a very depressing life. This led to me writing this very angsty little story that nearly made me cry just thinking about it. I don't know if I did it justice, but I tried. Also, at the beginning, I wanted to mention some of the companions from the Classic Doctor Who era, but the only episodes from then that I've seen are some on Netflix, and I have not yet seen one where a companion leaves. Google doesn't do it justice. Have you ever looked objectively at the explanation for what happened to Rose? Anyone who doesn't watch the show thinks you're a lunatic.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Doctor Who. If I did, I wouldn't admit it. I've seen how crazy some of Steven Moffat's fans are.

* * *

The Doctor knew he had done terrible things to the people who trusted him.

He'd taken a shop girl, made her fall in love with him, turned her into someone who could lead armies, and left her with a version of himself that, in many ways, would never truly be him.

He'd taken a woman training to be a doctor, made her love him too, and left her as a woman traumatized by war. He'd come back to find that she had become a soldier willing to kill countless numbers for the 'greater good.'

He'd taken a temp and showed her how completely wonderful and important she was and then taken it all away, leaving her empty and average, with nothing to show for all the wonderful things she had done.

He'd taken a little girl and left her waiting, always waiting, until she lost her friends, her family, and the only child she could ever have. His only consolation was that she had kept the man she loved.

He'd fallen in love with a woman who would kill for him, sit in a prison cell for him, and die for him while he sat there and asked her who she was.

Still, there was one that haunted the Doctor even more horribly, no matter how hard he tried to shove it away and forget. Captain Jack Harkness, who wasn't really a captain and who's name wasn't truly Jack Harkness, but the Doctor didn't argue.

A coward, a con man, a _shameless_ flirt. It tugged at both the Doctor's hearts, what he had done to that man. He had changed him, made him a hero, and it had been _good_. Jack could have done wonderful things with his life after the changes Rose and the Doctor had brought.

If only it had stopped there. The Doctor had known, he had _known,_ that Rose had brought Jack back that day as she destroyed the Daleks.

Of course she had, it was such a thoroughly _human_ thing to do. The Doctor had ran before Jack could catch up, hoping he could someday convince himself that everything had been alright in the end, that Rose hadn't done what he was certain she had.

Then Jack had appeared again, two years later, as far as the Doctor could tell - it was so hard to figure out how much time had gone by when calendars were useless - and the Doctor had tried to run again rather than face the inevitable confrontation.

But Jack had caught up. He'd done a remarkable job of hiding the hurt in his eyes when the Doctor told him he was _wrong_, the disappointment when the Doctor said there was nothing he could do.

The Doctor had felt his heart twisting, knowing what Jack was going through, what Jack _would_ go through. Immortality was a curse, a hell reserved for the worst of the worst, a punishment the Doctor used on enemies like the Family of Blood. It wasn't for men like Jack.

The Doctor heard about the fate of Jack's Torchwood team and subtly introduced Jack to Alonzo. They both needed someone. Maybe they could be good for each other. He tried to ignore the gnawing guilt that said it would just hurt them both worse in the long run. Everything would hurt Jack in the long run. He needed to be happy while it was still possible.

He hoped -_ prayed _- that Jack's old nickname was just a coincidence. He couldn't stand to think of the Face of Boe, so old, so wise, so _alone_, as being a result of his own mistakes. Jack, limping through life, unable to ever really care for anything because it wouldn't last, until he finally died billions of years later, the last of his kind in so many ways. The only one of his kind in so many ways.

But the worst thing - the absolute worst thing - was that if Jack truly was the Face of Boe then he had never forgotten the Doctor. He had never stopped loving and admiring the Doctor, even when he lived so long that the Doctor was an untrained toddler by comparison. Used his last breath to tell the Doctor what was coming. Waited over twenty years for the Doctor to come, even though he had no real assurance that it would ever happen. The Doctor had left Jack hanging out to dry before.

And, somehow, that made it all the worse.

The Doctor had done terrible things to those who followed him. Having them still trust him even afterwards… It was knives in his hearts. He could take anger and grief and guilt. Some days it felt as though he had nothing else. But love and forgiveness…

It just seemed so wrong that Jack, for all his years and changes and hurts, was still so… _human_. And the Doctor was just an old man being swallowed by his past.

Sometimes the Doctor wondered if he was crushed by guilt for what he had done, or by jealousy that Jack was so much stronger than he was.


End file.
